The present invention relates to a system for generating color video signals, such as a video game, comprising a source for supplying stored digital data, manual control means, a device for handling data produced by said means, and a generator generating synthesized pictures supplying the color signals R, V, B (R, G, B) in the form of quantized values as well as the field and line synchronizing signals, these signals being intended to form a picture on a screen from the data conveyed by the data handling device.
The invention has particularly, but not exclusively, for its object to provide so-called "video games" which are designed for connection to a color television receiver, either to the aerial input or to a special socket for the composite video input, the so-called "auxiliary input" with which many color-TV receivers are equipped at present.
The invention has also for its object to provide a video game which has its own display screen and more in general all types of picture generators whose color components R, V, B are produced at quantized levels and whose structures answers the definition given in the opening paragraph.
The invention also relates to a removable cassette intended to provide said digital data source in a video signal generating system. Systems of the above type are used inter alia for video games that are organized in accordance with the above-mentioned structure, based on the use of a generator generating synthesized pictures and designed exclusively for this use and producing the signals which are necessary to form a picture whose moving or stationary components are part of the picture subassemblies organized in accordance with a hierarchical order of possible modes. Thus, a picture subassembly will, for example, be reserved for stationary or quasi-stationary images (background color, lines defining a game area) while at least one further picture subassembly is capable of showing movable images on the screen, of detecting collisions between images, etc.
Consequently, this highly specialized generator for generating synthesized pictures is, after all, a very complicated element because of the nature of the functions it must perform. Therefore, up to the present and more specifically for reasons of economy, only pictures whose composition is very simple and which actually show only functional images which move in a rather rudimentary setting are displayed on the screen.
The degree to which these pictures appeal to the user leaves much to be desired in particular insofar as they deviate from natural scenes.